Update on Asylum and Immigration

St Albans Diocese Board for Church & Society supports local projects helping asylum seekers. Kemi Akinruli, Diocesan Socail Responsibility Officer, explains why.

The evolution of legislation, policy and government practice on Asylum and Immigration over the past 12 months has been enormous. Government’s move towards a more “efficient” system seems to be finally yielding some benefits in the way cases are dealt with resulting in fewer asylum applications are being made. This paper offers information on the work of the Board for Church and Society on this ongoing issue and describes the developments of the projects around the diocese.

A lot of work has been put into engaging with politicians and senior church people in order to bring to bear the moral considerations surrounding the policy and the procedure of the system. In April 2005, the Archbishop of Canterbury paid a private visit to Yarlswood and assessed for himself the state of affairs. Through a meeting in March 2005 with the then Minister for Immigration, Des Browne, which was arranged by Alan Harpham and attended by Simon Best and representatives from the YWB, telephone contacts of senior civil servants at NASS and the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) have been made available to YWB and WTRRP. NASS and the IND are willing to look into cases where there seem to be administrative failure (which they admit does happen) or to explain why things are being done as they are. In addition, the SRO has been invited to be a member of the South Herts Asylum Forum, which consists of representatives from NASS regional office, District Councils and other voluntary organisation working on asylum and refugee issues.

Update on Projects

  1. Yarlswood Befrienders: Sharon Jackson is the new Chair of the Befrienders and the number of befrienders has grown to 38 in the last 6 months. The detention centre population is approaching 300 and it is anticipated to reach a total of 405 (maximum bed space), by 2005 The YWB are focusing on providing much needed friendship and support to those in detention and are very concerned with the lack of adequate and affordable legal help available to detainees. They are also concerned that they have no means of ensuring the welfare of those who are being removed, when they reach their destination. The YWB group, which was nominated for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in June last year, has won the award.
  2. Watford and Three Rivers Refugees Project - The project, effectively run by Lawrie Coe, its secretary, continues to deal with rock bottom asylum and immigration cases in the Watford area.

Statutory Update

Sec 9, Asylum & Immigration 2004 – This legislation gives powers to the Home Office to withdraw NASS support from families whose asylum application have been refused and who are not co-operating with the Home Office to remove them. Support will not be withdrawn in cases where NASS judges they would be in breach of Articles 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment) or 8 (the right to a family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Where support is withdrawn, children may be put into local authority care, because of the provisions of the Children Act that prohibit them being left destitute.

Sec 4: NASS support usually ceases when an asylum application has failed and all immigration appeals have been exhausted. However “hard cases” can apply to NASS for support under sec 4, on the condition that they are unable to leave the country for no fault of theirs and will do so once they can. The problem however that arises is the gap between having support withdrawn once an asylum application has failed and having an application approved under sec 4. Sec 4 support applies in cases that affect families as well as single people and usually involves displacing the individuals from wherever they have lived and subjecting them to voucher only support.

Sec 10 : makes the provision of support for those who have failed their applications, conditional on the performance of community activities. The YMCA has controversially chosen to operate a pilot exercise to test this legislation.

NASS –The National Asylum Support Services is reviewing its accommodation contracts. In the East of England, Norwich, Peterborough and Ipswich are the only dispersal areas. NASS is proposing a wider distribution across the region, by exploring areas such as Bedford, Luton or Watford as satellites to the current areas. The total number of asylum seekers allocated to the Eastern Region is in the region of 800pa (2% of the national total).

Herts County Council: Gavin Edwards, manager of the asylum team for HCC explained that local authority responsibility for Asylum has now been limited to unaccompanied minors, through CSF, special needs (mental health, HIV/Aids) and pre –2000 cases, which may even soon be taken over by NASS. The Watford borough council is reluctant to be made a dispersal area, except resources will come with the responsibility as they anticipate it being a drain on their social care resources.

Future Developments:

Local support from churches and other church groups for projects such as the Watford and Three Rivers Refugee Project is very much needed. WTRRP is dealing with Rock bottom cases requiring financial assistance as well as housing.

    1. Exploring appropriate legal help – YWB have identified a gnawing gap in legal provision especially for those held in detention. The government is exploring a fast track system, which would hold new asylum claimants in detention, while dealing with their cases. The BCS will keep a close watch on the fast track system and seek to explore the use of retired lawyers (with suitable immigration law training) to offer appropriate levels of immigration support and advice. Individuals who will be willing to help detainees pursue relevant agencies in support of their application are actively been sought.
    2. Support for the Chaplaincy at YW : Larry Wright frequently identifies issues that require representation to statutory authorities, such as the current removal of detainees to Zimbabwe. The BCS will focus on calling on senior church members to respond to such situations, after appropriate research has been carried out
    3. Removals of detainees – We aim to have some statistics showing what happens to people when they are removed. We will be making church links in some of the major countries to which people are deported to ensure that those who are going back to ‘nothing and no one’ are at least met by local Christians.
    4. Strategic Partnerships. Our presence on strategic partnerships such as the S. Herts Asylum Forum is very important to understanding changes in legislation We are also exploring links with other Non –Governmental organisations such as the Refugee Council.

Kemi Akinruli, Social Responsibiity Officer, Diocese of St Albans, June 2005

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